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Australian Radio Network chief executive Ciaran Davis was a happy man when the latest Nielsen Media Research radio ratings were released last week.

The overall audience shares of most of ARN’s stations – which include the Mix network, WSFM, Gold FM and 97.3 FM – were up or largely steady and most gained share in the company’s core target market of people aged 25 to 54.

Sydney station WSFM saw some share declines. But Mr Davis, who joined ARN in January from Irish company Communicorp, said that was a good result, given the risk that the changes to the Mix station in Sydney this year could have cannibalised WSFM’s audience.

Mix Sydney’s ratings and revenue fell in a hole when it was relaunched as a direct rival to Austereo Group’s 2Day, the top-rating FM station in Sydney, in 2009.

ARN, which is jointly owned by APN News & Media and United States company Clear Channel, relaunched Mix Sydney again in January this year, introducing a new breakfast program, a new music playlist and a new target market of women aged 30 to 39.

“Mix Sydney is making good progress and is building audience across its breakfast, drive and evening programs," Mr Davis said. He described the drop in Mix Sydney’s breakfast audience share from 5 per cent in the previous ratings survey to 4.7 per cent in the new survey as a “small blip".

Southern Cross Media’s Austereo division was also upbeat about the new ratings results for its Triple M stations and the stations in its Today network, which includes 2Day, 3Fox, B105 and SAFM.

The once-troubled Triple M stations in Sydney and Melbourne lifted their audience shares, although they still fell short of the target set by Austereo, which was acquired by Southern Cross last month.

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“We’re happy with any station that lifts its share, so we’re happy with the Triple M stations," said Guy Dobson, who runs Southern Cross’ capital-city radio station division. “They are growing and the research on both stations is very strong."

Mr Dobson said he was also happy with the ratings of the Today network’s drive-time program.

In December, comedians Andy Lee and Hamish Blake (pictured) reduce their high-rating drive-time program from five days a week to one two-hour block a week. In January, Austereo launched a new drive-time program that covers the rest of the week, hosted by Fifi Box and Jules Lund.

The revamped program generated strong ratings in the most recent survey, but it lost share in some cities, including a two percentage point decline in Melbourne compared with the preceding survey.

A year ago, the Hamish and Andy show had a 13.6 per cent share on 2Day in Sydney and 21.3 per cent on 3Fox in Melbourne. In last week’s numbers, 2Day and 3Fox’s drive-time shares were 12.2 per cent and 15.1 per cent respectively.

Rival radio executives claimed the new drive-time program was struggling. Mr Dobson disagreed. “We’re very happy with it," he said. “Despite what people claim, the sky didn’t fall in when Hamish and Andy switched to once a week."

The first issue of UFC, the monthly magazine Nine Entertainment Co’s ACP division launched in late February, sold well but sales of the second issue were lower than expected.

ACP managing director Phil Scott would not reveal sales numbers for UFC, which is a local version of the American magazine based on the Ultimate Fighting Championship league.

The first issue of UFC sold an estimated 80,000 copies. Mr Scott said the second issue “was a bit of a wrinkle", but he was confident UFC’s sales would settle at ACP’s target of 50,000 copies an issue. The third issue went on sale last week.

“The response from advertisers to UFC was been good," Mr Scott said. “Apart from the soft sales for the second issue, we are pretty happy with how it’s tracking."

Meanwhile, ACP was understood to be close to announcing a deal with United States media giant Hearst Corp to include a section using content from the latter’s American men’s magazine Esquire in its eight-year-old title Men’s Style.

ACP was also believed to be planning to launch a local version of Esquire The Big Black Book, a style guide published four times a year in the US. Hearst and ACP have four jointly-owned magazines in Australia: Grazia, Cosmopolitan, Madison and Harper’s Bazaar.

Hearst looked at launching an Australian version of Esquire in the mid-1990s, but abandoned the idea when local publishers introduced Men’s Stuff and Metropolitan Style, neither of which survived.

Seven West Media chief executive David Leckie’s prediction the new season of Ten Network’sMasterChef would attract about 1.3 million viewers a night is looking increasingly flawed.

According to an affidavit sworn by James Warburton in his legal fight with Seven, Mr Leckie said MasterChef 3 “will do 1.3 million or less".

But the new season has drawn about 1.5 million viewers a night since it started on May 1, which was higher than most media buyers and Ten executives expected.

Most popular television programs have seen a decline in their audience numbers this year, in part, because of the appearance of three more digital channels – Nine Network’s Gem, Seven’s 7mate and Ten Network’s Eleven – over the past eight months.

Ten’s rivals pointed out MasterChef had lost ground in some viewer groups, including grocery buyers, so far this year. But it has gained viewers in the three main age groups TV advertisers focus on: 16 to 39, 18 to 49 and 25 to 54.

Village Roadshow’s plans to set up a theme park in China and list its part-owned United States film production and music company in Hong Kong are moving ahead.

In February, Village chief executive Graham Burke (pictured) told The Australian Financial Review its talks with one or more local partners in China were well-advanced.

The following month the company said it had signed a non-binding letter of intent with an un-named Chinese developer and was looking at development opportunities in Guangzhou and Hainan Island.

Last week Mr Burke said its plans in China were progressing but it was too early to discuss details such as when a theme park would open there or how much Village would invest in it.

A listing of Village Roadshow Entertainment Group, the US-based company 40.4 per cent owned by Village, on the Hong Kong stockmarket was expected to happen in July, raising about $300 million. Village will retain a stake in the company.

APN News & Media is finalising plans to set up GrabOne, the group-buying or daily-deals website it launched in Brisbane in November, in more markets over the next few months.

Chief executive Brett Chenoweth said GrabOne was now operating in Brisbane, Toowoomba and Newcastle, and APN would introduce it in other large regional markets in Queensland and NSW.

APN launched GrabOne in New Zealand last year. The Australian version is 75 per owned by APN and 25 per cent by Shane Bradley, who has set up several internet companies with APN in New Zealand, including Finda and Sella.